A Bride At His Bidding. Michelle Smart
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Three years ago she had written two names on a piece of paper. She had since struck James’s name off. Now it was time to strike Andreas’s off too.
To get her newspaper’s backing to go undercover though, she’d had to tell a little white lie... A few surprised eyebrows had been raised but the go-ahead had been given. No one had disbelieved her.
As the clock ticked down to the moment she would be taken to see Andreas, the ramifications of her lie rang loudly in her head. If the truth that Carrie was undertaking a personal vendetta was revealed her career would be over. The Daily Times was no shady tabloid. It was a highbrow publication that had made it through the trials and tribulations all the British press had been through over the past decade with its reputation largely intact. It was a good employer too.
If they could print only a fraction of what was suspected about some of the world’s most powerful people the public would need vodka spiked into the water system to help them get over the shock. The rich and powerful threw money into silencing the press and making problems disappear. They forced their staff to sign cast-iron non-disclosure agreements and were ruthless about enforcing them. Super-injunctions were de rigueur.
If Carrie got the job with Andreas she would be thrown directly into his personal world. She would be closer to her target than on any of her prior investigations. Who knew what she would find? When she’d first gone undercover with James in his accounts department she’d known he was a drug-abuser with a predilection for teenage girls but had had no idea of his involvement with people trafficking or arms. Andreas was that criminal’s friend. Who knew what he was involved with?
She’d known the odds of getting the job with Andreas were slim, even with her rigged CV and falsified references. On paper, they’d made her the perfect candidate for the role but it had been a rushed job, hurried to meet the application deadline. She couldn’t help worrying that there was a giant hole or two in it.
She hadn’t thought the preliminary interview with his PA had gone well and had left the building certain she’d messed up. When she’d received the call inviting her to a second interview, she was so shocked a mere breeze would have knocked her over.
And now, as that ticking clock echoed louder in her ears, all she could see when she closed her eyes was the burning hatred Andreas had thrown her way the one time their eyes had met.
* * *
‘Miss Dunwoody?’
Carrie blinked and looked up to find the superior young receptionist staring at her quizzically.
She’d gone under the name of Rivers for so long it had become a part of herself. Hearing her real name sounded foreign. She’d been known by the surname of Rivers since her mother had remarried when she’d been four and had thought it wise to continue using it when she embarked on her career in investigative journalism. There were a lot of sickos out there. In this instance, that decision had been fortuitous. She’d never legally changed her name. People in her world knew her as Carrie Rivers. Her birth certificate, driving licence and passport had her as Caroline Dunwoody. The advert for the job had explicitly stated it involved lots of travelling.
Falsifying references was one thing. Trying to fake a passport was a whole different ballpark.
‘Mr Samaras is ready to see you now.’
He’d kept her waiting for an hour.
Swallowing back a sudden violent burst of nausea, Carrie tightly clutched the strap of her handbag and followed the receptionist down a wide corridor lined with modern artwork.
It had taken her ages to find the perfect outfit for this interview. She’d wanted to look professional but not as if she were applying for a job within Samaras Fund Management itself. She’d settled on a cream high-necked cashmere top with a dozen small buttons running the length, a pair of smart grey trousers and simple black heels that gave her a little extra height for confidence but which she could comfortably walk in. Now she felt as if she’d dressed in a smothering straightjacket, the heels a hindrance to her unsteady feet.
A door opened and Carrie was admitted into an office twice the size of the one she shared with the rest of the crime team and a hundred times plusher.
There, behind an enormous oak desk, working on one of three computers, sat Andreas Samaras.
Her heart slammed against her chest then thudded painfully and for one frightening moment Carrie thought she really was going to vomit.
He didn’t look up from what he was doing.
‘One minute please,’ he said in the deep, quick, sharply staccato voice she remembered from their one telephone conversation instigated by Andreas five years ago.
Carrie’s sister and Andreas’s niece had been weekly boarders and roommates at school together. Their friendship had deepened and soon they had wanted to spend weekends and holidays together too. Andreas had phoned Carrie to agree on some ground rules. They had found much to agree on. It helped that they had both been in the same position, both of them the sole carers of their vulnerable teenage charges. After that one conversation, they would text message each other to confirm if Natalia was due at Carrie’s for the weekend or if Violet was due at Andreas’s. It had become a rhythm in Carrie’s life, right until Andreas had engineered Violet’s expulsion.
Finally, he looked up from his computer, pushed his chair back and got to his feet. The sheer size and power of the man was as starkly apparent as it had been when he had swept past her three years ago.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Dunwoody.’
She stared at the huge hand extending towards her and forced herself to lean forward and take it. Large, warm tapered fingers covered hers as he shook her hand briskly before letting go.
‘Take a seat,’ he commanded amicably, sitting back down and picking up a thin pile of papers from his desk.
The skin on her hand buzzed where he’d clasped it and she fought the urge to rub it against her thigh as she took the seat he’d directed her to, and expelled the tiniest sigh of relief.
There had been only a teeny ounce of doubt he wouldn’t recognise her. Physically she’d changed a lot since that one fleeting glance three years ago outside the headmistress’s office, when his light brown eyes had lasered her with such ferocity she had recoiled. Stress alone had made her lose three stone since then, which had altered her facial features as well as her body shape. She’d long stopped her quest for the perfect shade of blonde hair and reverted to her natural brown colour.
If Andreas had the slightest idea of who she really was, she would not be there. She wouldn’t have got past the initial application.
It hadn’t seemed feasible that he would recognise her or her name but she had learned through five years of her job to take nothing for granted.
Light brown thoughtful eyes studied her rather than the paperwork in his hand, which she guessed was a copy of her job application, and she fought hard against the flush of colour crawling over her skin. When she finally forced herself to meet his gaze, the raw masculinity staring back at her intensified the flush, enflaming her bones, taking her so unawares that for a moment her mind emptied of everything but the rapid tattoo of her heart reverberating in her ears.
Carrie swallowed, desperate for moisture in her parched throat, desperate to suck air into lungs that had closed in on themselves. Whatever kind of a man Andreas was, there was no denying that he was divine to look at. He had thick dark brown hair sun-kissed on the tips, barely tamed to flop onto a gently lined forehead, cheekbones you could ski down, a chiselled square jaw already dark with stubble and a sharp nose with a slight bend on the bridge. Deeply tanned and weather-beaten, he looked every one of his thirty-seven years.
He was the most overtly virile and handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on.
Then he gave her a crooked grin.
It was like being smiled at by the big bad wolf the moment before he ate Grandma.
‘Congratulations